84 ~~ THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE

stocks, there is also a class of dealers and brokers who specialize
 in bonds. These must likewise be allotted a chapter by
themselves.?®

Parts of the Stock Exchange System.—The various
brokers and dealers above enumerated compose the actual memhers
 of the market on the floor of the Exchange, where contracts
 are made for the purchase and sale of securities and for
the borrowing and lending of both stocks and money. The
floor of the Exchange is the oldest, most central, and most
indispensable part of the Stock Exchange system.
But in addition to the floor, there is (2) the clearance and
settlement system,®” embodied in the Stock Clearing Corporation,
 which provides an efficient and economical method of
clearing and settling contracts made on the floor; (3) the commission
 houses? including their branch and correspondents’
offices in all parts of the country and even abroad, through
which the public has access to the security market on the floor;
and (4) the administrative machinery of the Exchange,* including
 not only many specialized officers and employees of
the Exchange, but also several subsidiary corporations like
the New York Stock Exchange Quotation Company, the New
York Stock Exchange Building Company, etc. These several
parts of the Exchange system will be successively treated in
subsequent chapters.

Evolution and Change.—It is well for the student of the
New York Stock Exchange to realize at the outset that, while
today it represents the culmination of over a century’s evolution,
 it is a living and growing economic organism in which
development and change are constant. Not only must this
market accommodate the business of a vast and always growing
 country, but its specific methods must steadily adapt themselves
 to new conditions in banking, corporate organization

# See Chapter X.
27 See Chapters XII, XIII, and XIV.
#8 See Chapter XV,
2 See Chapter XVI.